From up-and-coming ski jumper to NFL Hall of Fame, Jan Stenerud’s journey is one of the more unique stories in Professional Football’s history. Stenerud is recognized as one of the first “pure” kickers of his era and remained clutch throughout his 19-year career, which spanned over three decades.
Jan Stenerud was born on November 26, 1942, and grew up in Fetsund, Norway. Throughout childhood, he heard stories about America and dreamed of traveling there one day. As an adolescent, Stenerud fell in love with Norway’s past-time sport, ski jumping. As he progressed, Stenerud was on pace to be the country’s finest at the sport by age 19. So much so that he received a letter from the ski jumping coach at Montana State University offering him a full scholarship. When he arrived, he was amazed by the campus lifestyle at Montana State, which was unlike anything he had experienced in Norway.
One of Stenerud’s training regiments as a competitive ski jumper was keeping his legs strong. His primary exercise to achieve that was jogging up and down the bleachers at the football stadium. During his junior year, the kicker on the football team was on the field kicking field goals and invited him to come down and kick the ball.
After a few attempts kicking with the side of his foot, soccer style, Stenerud noticed he sent the ball further downfield. Eventually, word got out to the head football coach that there was a Norwegian skier he should look at. A day before the Bobcats’ last home game, the football team practiced on the field while Stenerud ran the bleachers. Eventually, the coach called out to him and had him practice kickoffs.
After sending multiple kicks 70 yards downfield, Stenerud kicked for the football team during pregame warmups despite not being eligible to play since he was already on the ski team for his junior year. In 1965, he tried out the following spring and made the football team for his senior year. The following season, he was told if he stayed in school for another season, he’d be eligible to be drafted into NFL. Thus, Stenerud remained the kicker for Montana State as a fifth-year senior.
During the 1966 college season, Stenerud was picked by Kansas City Chiefs as the 24th player taken in the AFL Redshirt Draft. By 1968, he made the first of two consecutive AFL All-Star games. During the 1969 season, Stenerud made 77.1% of his field goal attempts – the highest percentage during his tenure with the Chiefs. Super Bowl IV, his three field goals were the first nine points in the franchise’s 23-7 dismantling of the Minnesota Vikings. The 48-yarder he made during the game remained the longest field goal in a Super Bowl for 24 seasons until 1994, when Steve Christie nailed a 54-yard field goal in Super Bowl XXVIII.
Following the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, Stenerud made two straight Pro Bowls and was a First Team All-Pro the year after Kansas City won the Super Bowl. In 1971, Stenerud faced the most challenging moment of his career on Christmas Day in an AFC division playoff game against the Miami Dolphins. After making a 24-yarder in the first quarter, the four-time pro bowler missed from 29 and 32 yards. As the game became deadlocked at 24 points apiece, Stenerud had a chance to send the Chiefs to the AFC Championship with 35 seconds in regulation, but his 42-yard attempt was blocked. After two overtime periods, Miami triumphed over Kansas City on a 37-yard field goal by Garo Yepremian for a 27-24 win.
Kansas City failed to make the postseason for the remainder of Stenerud’s Chiefs career. In 1975, he was named to his third career Pro Bowl after making 22 of 32 field goal attempts. Stenerud kicked in Kansas City for four more seasons before he was made a free agent in 1980.
At the turn of the decade, Stenerud signed with Green Bay, where he’d spend a four-year stint with the Packers before being traded to the Minnesota Vikings in 1984. His ’84 campaign was the final time he made the Pro Bowl and earned Second-Team All-Pro honors. Stenerud retired from football following the 1985 campaign.
After 19 seasons kicking in the NFL, the once promising ski-jumper is remembered as one of the greatest kickers ever to play the game and one of the first foreign players to enter the league. Jan Stenerud’s recording of 373 career field goals and seven seasons in which he scored at least 100 points are NFL records. He drove 17 fields goal over 50 yards, and his career-high was a 55-yarder that he made against the Denver Broncos in 1970.
Stenerud left football as a Super Bowl champion, a two-time AFL All-Star, a four-time Pro Bowler, and a First-Team All-Pro in 1970. In 1991 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A year later, he made the Chiefs’ Hall of Honor. He was also named to the NFL’s 75th and 100th Anniversary Teams.
